Family Background and Race over the Life Course

Madison for their helpful comments and suggestions. Any opinions expressed are those of the authors alone. Family Background and Race over the Life Course For decades, geneticists and social scientists have relied on sibling correlations as indicative of the effect of genes and environment on behavioral traits and socioeconomic outcomes. The current paper advances this line of inquiry by exploring sibling similarity across a variety of socioeconomic outcomes, across stages in the life course, and across racial groups. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), we find substantial differences in sibling correlations across socioeconomic outcomes. Family background matters more for socioeconomic statuses that are temporally closer to the family of origin—educational and occupational attainments—and family background matters less for socioeconomic statuses that individuals move into and out of over the life course. Sibling correlations in earnings and income converge over the life course, and sibling correlations in educational and occupational attainments and wealth remain stable across the life course. These findings run counter to th